Blue Regal Tang Very Sick - Advice Please!

Ive have my Blue tang for maybe a week now and immediately she looked great in the new home(she's about 2 1/2"). At the LFS guy told me they are very shy and wont come out for few weeks after being added to a new tank. She went in an immediately made best friends with my Coral beauty. Two of them would swim all over the tank together in and out of my rocks etc. Also she was eating very healthy right away.

After about 5-6 days I stopped seeing her come out at all, for about 2 days she hid completely behind my rocks and I started to think there was a prob. I finally saw her lastnight stuck to my power head, it appears she was coming to the surface to gasp for air and got stuck up high on my power head.

This was a good thing because I was able to immediately net her and get her in my quarantine tank. She looked as though she had Ick and or another disease, very discolored and sick looking in only a day or two! Ive got her in alone with Furan 2 (which always works wonders) and she has survived 24 hours now in quarantine, but is still not looking good. She can barley swim and tries to make attempts to get to the surface for air. I do have a large air stone I added as soon as she went in knowing she wasnt getting much oxygen.

Also, water parameters are perfect as always thanks to my scrubber

.023 Salt
0 Ammonia
0 nitrite
0 nitrate
0 phosphate
8.2 PH
79 degrees

Apparently Ive been reading its VERY common for new Blue Tangs to get sick easily, does anyone have advise what I can do to her get get better faster?

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This is in the 90 gallon? Blue tangs (like most tangs) require six feet of swimming room. Your fish is sick because it is stressed. Please bring it back to the store, your tank is not a suitable home for it.

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This is in the 90 gallon? Blue tangs (like most tangs) require six feet of swimming room. Your fish is sick because it is stressed. Please bring it back to the store, your tank is not a suitable home for it.

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Im sorry but thats just not true, 90 gal is very sufficient space for a few years until Im ready to upgrade. This has nothing to do with her being sick.

Not to mention If I bring her back, shes going right back into the 40 gal tank she came from...

The thing thats people don't realize sometimes is that there is no "set standard" in much of this hobby. There are other things to consider other than just 4' vs 6' total swim distance. She has lots of room to swim, as well as rocks she can go in and out of.

I could not even begin to tell you how many perfectly happy Blue tangs I have seen (and read about) in 4' or less tanks. It seems to be a common theme to this particular forum that people believe the hard minimum to be 180 gals or so. If you do a little research outside these walls its very common for them to be just fine in 75 - 120 gal tanks (while juvenile). You may be thinking of housing them at full adult size, In which case I wouldnt even think about a tank less than 180gal...

I certainly don't plan on having her in the 90 gal for more than a year tops, but she is very young, and very small.

I can tell you that I agree that an upgrade will be needed, but can also say with any doubt this has nothing to do with her current sickness (also considering she just came from a much smaller tank).

I really did not want to get into a tank size debate, I really am just trying to get some quick advise about best way to treat Blue tangs that have sudden outbreaks of Ick in new tanks...

In short, your fish is stressed. Blues are prone to ich and illness more than any other Tang, or species. Also prone to HLLE more than any other.

So that being said, since you had done all of the research, and read all the stuff on-line, why did you not know this?

Only you know why this fish is acting the way it is. And only you can fix it.

Really not trying to be a dick, but you seem to have researched, and come to your own conclussions on the species. So I have to wonder why you are asking for advice when the outcome is not as you expected?

But all the reading isnt going to make up for the fact that thins is my first Tang. I was hoping that someone with first hand "Blue Tang Experience" would be able to give me some pointers on proper quarantine treatment. For example:

Is Furan 2 good treatment?

Should I consider a FW dip?

Does this happen often with Blue Regals or only when brought into new environments?

These are the sort of things I was hoping to get some advise on. Im sorry if I wasnt clear enough, Im just woried about my fav fish getting better :sad:

The thing about those sites that you listed is that I have never heard of them before. Dr. Fosters and Smith is the most trusted site for accurate tank recommendations.
There may be someone else on this site that will tell you differently, but I am willing to bet the majority of us will tell you the same thing. The fish is stressed because the tank is too small. There is nothing else you can do for it aside from quarantine and treating, which you are already doing. Unless you leave the whole tan fallow (fishless) for eight weeks, every time that fish gets stressed it will get ich again.

I'm sorry dude. What exactly do you want to hear? What sort of advice are you looking for? You have the fish in quarentine, you should be feeding garlic soaked food. Get rid of the airstone and add a powerhead. Start treating for the conditions the fish is exhibiting. Whether or not it will work, 50/50. It sounds like there are multiple issues with your fish. If it was oxygen starved in your tank, then you need to address your flow issues. If it has ich, then you need to take the appropriate action and treat for that. You've started on the right foot by putting the Tang in a QT.

IMO, the best thing you could possibly do for the Tang is to keep trying to get it to eat, maybe even cover the tank with something, (like a blanket) to reduce any more stress. And leave it alone....we sometimes forget, that until a fish understands you're the food source, it sees you as a predator.

I have 3 different Tangs, I've purposely stayed away from Blue Tangs, Powder Browns, for that very reason. they're very fragile fish.

I don't know if medication will help, I tend not to subscribe to alot of the meds, and since I've never had a fish get sick (knock on wood) I don't know how they work.

BUT...if I did have a sick fish, I would put it in a QT tank, give it plenty of areas to hide, Blanket the tank and just keep feeding it, and hope for the best. Hope it works out for you.

Furan is not a cure for ich. If you are sure it has ich, you need to treat with either hyposalinity or copper. You could be using the wrong medication for your situation.

Plus, if you do treat for ich, and you put it back in your original tank, it will get ich again from the other fish that are still in there, as they are all carriers of the parasite until they are treated too.

The only way to eliminate it from your system and ensure that your tang doesn't get it again is to remove all fish from the tank, and treat all of them with either hyposalinity or copper for 8 weeks.

Furan is not a cure for ich. If you are sure it has ich, you need to treat with either hyposalinity or copper. You could be using the wrong medication for your situation.

Plus, if you do treat for ich, and you put it back in your original tank, it will get ich again from the other fish that are still in there, as they are all carriers of the parasite until they are treated too.

The only way to eliminate it from your system and ensure that your tang doesn't get it again is to remove all fish from the tank, and treat all of them with either hyposalinity or copper for 8 weeks.

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Well thats just the thing, Im really not sure its Ich. Ive never had any of my marine fish get ich before but she did have what looked to be a few white spots yesterday, and I recalled hearing about them being very prone to ich, so I assumed...

I deffinitly look into these other treatments if shes not improving in the next 24 hours, thanks.

I cannot figure out why you are debating the tank size thing - your fish is proof that they stress out in a smaller tank. And im sure that fact your fish has been stuck in small tanks for quite a while, and now with the stress of being moved to a new tank yet again, she just couldnt handle it. Her immune system has shut off, letting the disease take over.

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